Royal Signals Reserve’s need for the pre-war generation and developing Reserve utility

By Colonel Vince Connelly

It is clear the Army needs to prepare for the possibility of large-scale conflict in Europe. In order to deter this possibility the Army, with NATO allies, needs to present a coherent force structured and sustainable at the Corps level for warfighting. The waypoints of How We Fight 26 and Project Wavell will give the Army the framework to develop the future force. Key to reform in financially difficult times will be thinking differently about our cost effective reserve forces. The Army Reserve, under Future Soldier is split between two roles, providing individual backfill to our gapped regular units while retaining the framework for a modicum of collective capability. It is difficult to work to two missions and this has driven the Army Reserve to try and achieve equivalence to their regular peers in peacetime despite their more limited time available for training. The bringing of the regular reserves (now strategic reserve) out of abeyance provides the conceptual opportunity to think again about our Army Reserve Signal Regiments. If the Strategic Reserve can provide much of the individual backfill then the Army Reserve Signal Regiments can provide the unit level collective wartime utility many other nations demand from their volunteer reserves. Colonel Vince Connelly’s article “The Army Reserve the Royal Signals need for the pre-war generation” provides the argument for this demand. This is followed by Colonel Rhid Jones’ “Utility and Role of the R SIGNALS Regional Reserves” which discusses reserve utility, deployability and readiness and explains how collective capability in support of HQ ARRC and across Field Army is being provided by the Army Reserve now and demonstrates that we can grow this capability for the future. Across the Army, other Arms and Services are recalibrating away from equivalence and developing unit level roles for their Army Reserves. The Royal Signals needs to be leading the way. We have done so in the past and we can do so in the future. This will give us the reserve we need.

Link to full article.